Driverless shuttles are a new automated road-based means of transport, small in size and capacity and with a relatively low operational speed. Classified as high-automation vehicles, these shuttles are capable of driverless operations in specific operational design domains. Given their characteristics, driverless shuttles have been studied as a first/last-mile complement to main public transport lines, serving the access and egress parts in multimodal trips. Currently, driverless shuttles are mostly operated as pilots testing their technical capabilities and measuring passengers' willingness to use them. To reduce the gap between pilots and implementation, this study formulates a set of deployment scenarios for driverless shuttle integration in transit. A four-step approach is followed. First, the scenario field is identified. Second, key factors that support the future integration of driverless shuttles are defined based on a literature study. Third, these key factors are analysed through a stakeholder survey, in which experts in the field of transport define possible development directions. Fourth, survey respondents combine these factors to create plausible future scenarios. Through the formulation of three scenarios, the results of this study show the best combinations of vehicle characteristics, type of supervision, operational characteristics, and type of infrastructure for future integration of driverless shuttles. ... Read more

Automated bus systems are a promising means of future first- and last mile public transport solutions, and can even possibly become a regular part of the public transport network. Therefore, many projects appear throughout Europe to pilot the feasibility of automated bus system implementation on various locations. Keeping up with the rapidly increasing pace in which these pilots appear, this report aimed to provide an overview of past, currently on-going, and concretely planned pilots with automated bus systems in Europe. Via extensive internet searches, exhausting personal networks, and gathering information from other sources, a detailed overview was developed. In the first version, established March 2020, 118 pilots were found which were characterized by vehicles with predominantly low speeds, low capacities, and short operation routes. In this final version, established February 2021, aside from additional information on known pilots, another 13 were found, making a total of 131 pilots throughout Europe. The search in itself proved to be difficult due to the often lacking detailed information of pilots, which was argued to be due to most scientific pilots being of recent years, and therefore often still on-going, and consequentially not having published any information yet on their research. Another difficulty arose due to the rapid increase of occurring pilots with automated buses, which leads to the report already being out-of-date as this report is being written. Therefore, this report was updated early 2021. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic situation appears a major issue for automated bus systems pilots during the year 2020. The results show that currently the vast majority of automated bus system pilots occur with the presence of a steward on board, due to legislation, technological challenges, as well as passengers requesting them, raising concerns regarding (e.g., economic) efficiency. Although there are a few automated bus systems that actively show efficient operation without on board stewards, this still appears to be a future development. ... Read more

Automated bus systems are a promising means of future first- and last mile public transport solutions, and can even possibly become a regular part of the public transport network. Therefore, many projects appear throughout Europe to pilot the feasibility of automated bus system implementation on various locations. Keeping up with the rapidly increasing pace in which these pilots appear, this report aimed to provide an overview of past, currently on-going, and concretely planned pilots with automated bus systems in Europe. Via extensive internet searches, exhausting personal networks, and gathering information from other sources, a detailed overview was developed. 118 pilots were found which were characterized by vehicles with predominantly low speeds, low capacities, and short operation routes. The search in itself proved to be difficult due to the often lacking detailed information of pilots, which was argued to be due to most scientific pilots are of recent years, and therefore often still on-going, and have consequentially not published any information yet on their research. Another difficulty arose due to the rapid increase of occurring pilots with automated buses, which leads to the report already being out-of-date as this report is being written. Therefore, this report will be updated early 2021. Currently, the vast majority of automated bus system pilots occur with the presence of a steward on board, due to legislation, technological challenges, as well as passengers requesting them, raising concerns regarding (e.g., economic) efficiency. Although there are a few automated bus systems that actively show efficient operation without on-board stewards, this still appears to be a future development. ... Read more

Shared Automated Vehicles (SAVs) are a new road-based means of transport, usually small in size and capacity, with a relatively low operating speed and no (regular) possibility for the user to engage in any of the driving tasks. Past research focused on the implication of fully Automated Vehicles (AVs) in the transport sector, especially automated cars, analysing travel behaviour, network design, costs and infrastructure development. Such an extensive research on SAVs cannot be found, and most results are based on predictions for AVs acceptance instead, next to simulation studies, assumption-based models or stated choice experiments. In this paper we conduct a meta-analysis of existing literature, analysing the underlying factors that determine the adoption of SAVs. We identify the factors that have a positive effect, the ones that have a negative effect and the ones for which the effect is still unknown. Subsequently, we propose a conceptual scheme to illustrate the links between the public transport network components and the implementation of SAVs, defining a set of research questions that can help integrate SAVs in the public transport system. ... Read more

The term last-mile delivery refers to the final leg of a business-to-customer service, in which products are shipped from a depot to a destination point by means of land transportation, such as vans and small trucks. Although these vehicles provide a common and easy way to consign products, companies are striving for new transport technologies to reduce congestion, infrastructure limita
tions and air pollution. An alternative to road-bounded vehicles that has recently gained attention is the adoption of drones in parcel delivery. Drone applications range from military training, surveillance, path recognition and shipment of perishable products in emergency situations. Research on drones as delivery vehicles is still in its early stages, with some practical trials carried out by leader companies such as Google and Amazon. However, the application of drones in the pharmaceutical sector for home deliveries of medical products, has not been investigated yet. To gain new insights into the feasibility of introducing drones in the delivery fleet, drone applications were studied for the delivery operations of the pharmacy BENU ’t Slag, in Rotterdam. Two scenario alternatives were tested using the Vehicle Routing Problem formulation. A Large-scale Neighborhood Search lgorithm was implemented to solve the problem and derive the performance indicators associated with each scenario. Performances were then analyzed through a comparative analysis. When drones were introduced in the delivery fleet, indicators showed improvements in environmental aspects, service time and delivery costs, with a reduction of 9% in CO2 emissions, 12% in service
time and 5.6% in cost per item. ... Read more